Lotus gets two UK government green projects

Lotus Engineering has won two green vehicle projects from the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board. The first project involves working as part of the Zero Emission London Taxi Commercialisation consortium to develop a fuel cell taxi system including the electric drivetrain, fuel cell engine and hydrogen storage system. The system will then be assembled into two taxis for full vehicle testing.

The other project is a collaboration with Jaguar Cars Ltd, MIRA Ltd and Caparo Vehicle Technologies called the Limo-Green project. It will use a Jaguar (probably the XJ?) as a basis to develop a large luxury hybrid sedan using an advanced electric motor combined with a small battery pack and something which Lotus calls an “Auxiliary Power Unit“, which is probably in reality a small gasoline engine.

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.

Good to Lotus. In Jaguar they have a customer recently acquired by an Indian OEM (Tata). This will be an opportunity to impress. I have read they are about to open an office in India shortly.
I’m sure that this could lead to even more work for the group on this continent.

This is good for Lotus, but not necessarily for Proton. Much of the technology, such as zero emission, will not be used in Malaysia, and to ask for Proton to manufacture those kind of vehicles and export them is too much to ask. Research takes a lot of funds and, if successful, will yield very high returns. Some will not matreialise and the cost written off. Can Proton afford this?
As said, companies like Jaguar are using Lotus, without owning it. They pay fees, but do not share the risk.
So far, the benefit of Lotus to Proton is only some tweaking of suspensions and minor things here and there.
What is commendable is that due to Proton’s presence as a major shareholder, Lotus has been rescued from the brink of bankruptcy. If not for anything else, Proton has added value to Lotus, and should they want to sell Lotus in the future, hopefully they’ll get their money back with some profit.

Why Lotus for zero emissions? British car maker is it? Last thing that comes to mind of zero emissions is Lotus. Maybe there was something good in the bid to make lotus get it? Or maybe they just throw everything out of the car make it as barebones as posibble

In answer to Longjaafar, you are correct. Proton will not be able to benefit directly in technology terms from the Jaguar project.
Lotus will be bound by confidentially clauses in their contracts with their clients. Having paid for the engineering service, the client will own the technology.
When Khazanah paid the outstanding debts that Lotus had, it will obviously make it easier for Lotus to be successful, in the near and hopefully long term. A company that now appears to be making a profit in the Automotive industry is rare. As such, Lotus would be an attractive “Buy” should the Malaysian government choose to sell.
You are quite correct,when you say companies can use lotus without owning them. Proton used a Korean design office on some recent projects. They didn’t own them.

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